We are truly thrilled to present you LIONS first special issue – the no photoshop issue.

10 million users worldwide, an invention that has marked a change in almost every society and especially has altered our perception of beauty. You might think about social media or the flourishing plastic surgery industry, but it is the image editing program photoshop.

​The invention of photoshop opened completely new opportunities for photographers and allowed them to reduce perceived flaws easily with just a few clicks.

Sounds good so far, but as the years went by and computer technology, monitors and software became more sophisticated a tendency to over-retouch images to an extent that the person on it cannot be recognized anymore. And as many brilliant inventions designed to make our lives better, photoshop achieved the opposite effect.

The so-called generation y and z grew up under a constant storm of images displaying seemingly perfect women, with perfect skin and bodies which resulted in young women that experience a deeply disturbed body perception. An alarming number of girls trying to find salvation in eating disorders and ridiculous trends such as obligatory nose-job as a present for finishing school reveal the struggles of a generation trying to keep up with an unrealistic beauty ideal.

The French government reacted with a minimum body mass index certified by a dotctor and age restrictions for runway models, additional there is a labelling obligation for retouched images used for commercial purposes.

Art is defined as the expression of human creative skill and imagination and photography is our only way to display a snapshot of what we see. It is understandable that we always strive to improve this vision but with an awareness that it is also our responsibility that the viewer will not always be able to distinguish what is reality and what is an illusion.

This no-photoshop edition is the living proof that beauty has a million shades and forms. The editorials in it show the natural beauty of different models, achieved only with the craftsmanship of real photographers – completely without the power of photoshop.